The Success and Failure of Picasso At the height of his powers, Pablo Picasso was the artist as revolutionary, breaking through the niceties of form in order to mount a direct challenge to the values of his time. At the height of his fame, he was the artist as royalty: incalculably wealthy, universally idolized−and wholly isolated. In this stunning critical assessment, John Berger−one of this century's most insightful cultural historians−trains his penetrating gaze upon this most prodigious and enigmatic painter and on the Spanish landscape and very particular culture that shpaed his life and work. Writing with a novelist's sensuous evocation of character and detail, and drawing on an erudition that embraces history, politics, and art, Berger follows Picasso from his childhood in Malaga to the Blue Period and Cubism, from the creation of Guernica to the pained etchings of his final years. He gives us the full measure of Picasso's triumphs and an unsparing reckoning of their cost−in exile, in loneliness, and in a desolation that drove him, in his last works, into an old man's furious and desperate frenzy at the beauty of what he could no longer create. |
Contents
Orpheus and Eurydice 1650 Louvre Paris | 53 |
Robert Delaunay The Eiffel Tower 1910 Guggenheim Museum | 63 |
Les Demoiselles dAvignon 1907 Museum of Modern Art | 71 |
Nude 19078 Madame Cuttoli collection | 77 |
Curtain for Parade 1917 Musée National dArt Moderne | 84 |
Women at the Fountain 1921 | 96 |
Bull Horse and Female Matador 1934 | 103 |
The Triumph of Pan 16389 Louvre Paris | 106 |
Nude on a Black Couch 1932 Mrs Meric Gallery Paris | 155 |
Woman in a Red Armchair 1932 reproduced by courtesy c | 156 |
Nude 1933 | 158 |
Head of Woman bronze 19312 private collection | 159 |
Sculptor and Model Resting 1933 | 160 |
Page of drawings 1936 | 161 |
Young Girl and Minotaur 19545 | 163 |
Echo of a Scream 1937 Museum of Modern Art New York gift of Edward M M Warburg | 166 |
Bacchanale 1944 private collection | 107 |
The Mirror 1932 private collection | 108 |
Weeping Head 1957 on extended loan to the Museum of Modern Art New York from the artist | 109 |
Figure 1939 Othmar Huber collection Glarus Switzerland | 110 |
Triptych 1946 Musée Grimaldi Antibes | 112 |
The Feast of the Gods 1514 National Gallery of Art Washington D C Widener collection | 113 |
Massacre in Korea 1951 | 114 |
Peace 1952 Temple de la Paix Wallauris France | 115 |
Shepherd and Nymph c 1570 Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna | 116 |
Composition aur deur perroquets 19359 Musée National dArt Moderne Paris | 118 |
Delacroix Horse Frightened by a Storm 1824 National Museum Budapest | 123 |
The Bird 1915 Museum of Modern Art New York | 127 |
Illustration to Aimé Césaires Corps perdu 1950 | 137 |
The Immaculate Conception Uffizi Florence | 141 |
The Race 1922 private collection | 142 |
Figure 1927 private collection | 144 |
Woman in an Armchair 1929 private collection | 145 |
Girls with a Toy Boat 1937 Peggy Guggenheim collection Venice | 146 |
Guernica detail 1937 on extended loan to the Museum of Modern Art New York from the artist | 147 |
Nude Dressing Her Hair 1940 Mrs Bertram Smith collection | 148 |
Nude with a Musician 1942 Musée National dArt Moderne Paris | 149 |
First Steps 1945 Yale University Art Gallery | 151 |
Portrait of Mrs H P 1952 private collection | 152 |
Portrait of the Chief Superintendent of the Asylum at Saint Remy 1889 Mrs DübiMüller collection | 153 |
Bull Horse and Female Matador 1934 | 167 |
Crying Woman 1937 | 168 |
Stilllife with Bulls Skull 1942 the estate of André Lefèvr collection | 170 |
Dove poster | 174 |
Delacroix Les Femmes dAlger 1834 Louvre Paris | 182 |
Las Meninas 1656 Museo del Prado Madrid | 184 |
Bullfight 1934 Victor W Ganz collection | 185 |
Nude and Old Clown 21 December 1953 | 187 |
Young Woman and Monkey 3 January 1954 | 189 |
Young Woman and Cupid with Mask 5 January 1954 | 190 |
Young Woman with Cupids 5 January 1954 | 191 |
Girl Clown Donkey and Monkey 10 January 1954 | 192 |
Old Clown and Couple 10 January 1954 | 193 |
Couple with Masks 24 January 1954 | 194 |
Old Man and Young Woman with Masks 25 January 1954 19 | 195 |
Girl Clown Mask and Monkey 25 January 1954 | 196 |
Painter and Model 24 December 1955 | 198 |
Painter and Model 25 December 1953 | 199 |
Woman Apple Monkey Man 26 January 1954 | 200 |
Woman and Monkey Painting 10 January 1954 | 201 |
Woman with Bare Breasts Museo del Prado Madrid 21 | 211 |
Vanity of the World 1515 Alte Pinakothek Munich | 212 |
Nu couché 5 October 1972 Musée Picasso Paris | 215 |
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absurd anarchism Andalusia Apollinaire artist attitude ballet Barcelona became become beginning believe body bourgeois Braque Césaire Cézanne child prodigy communist connexion Courbet criticism Cubists cultural Demoiselles d'Avignon destroy drawing duende emotion Europe European everything experience express eyes face fact feel figures Fra Angelico French French Communist Party genius Gogh Guernica happened head idea idealization imagination John Berger Juan Gris Léger Les Demoiselles d'Avignon live loneliness look magic Malaga mask means modern monkey mystery nature never nineteenth century noble savage Nude º º painter Parade Paris peasants Perhaps period physical Picasso Picasso painted picture poet political Portrait possible Poussin primitive prodigy reality result revolution revolutionary Self-Portrait sensation sense sexual social society Spain Spanish spirit still-lifes success Théâtre du Châtelet thing Titian transformed truth understand vertical invader vision visual whilst women